


Ghosts from the Past

by gorseflower



Category: Night Watch - Sarah Waters
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6658042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorseflower/pseuds/gorseflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viv and Kay, outside the cinema.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts from the Past

"Vivien?" said Kay as soon as she saw Viv's face. "Vivien... Perry, wasn't it?"

"Pearce. But Vivien's fine." 

Kay was looking at her like someone who'd just been woken from a dream. Viv said "I was in your ambulance once, during the war..."

"I remember. You're the girl who forgot her ring."

However reasonable Fraser's points, Viv had been somehow sure that Kay would remember. She smiled, partly because she was right, partly from relief that she hadn't had to prompt her first with any horrible details. 

"Yes. I brought it with me - your one, I mean." She opened the hand in which she was clutching the ring and held it out. "I saw you here, and I've been coming back. I wanted to thank you..."

Kay took the ring and stood there as Viv spoke, holding it without putting it on. Two boys pushed past her into the cinema. Viv realised she'd been expecting Kay to take charge, make something important happen, like on that dreadful night, but it seemed Kay wasn't going to. She tried to think of a way to make their meeting live up to her own expectations, suddenly afraid it would slip away like any other minute.

"It was the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"It was my job, then."

"That part wasn't."

There was a moment of silence, then Viv said "That's all I wanted to say, really. I'm so glad you remembered me."

"I meant to come back once I was off shift," said Kay. "Make sure you were OK. I knew you wouldn't have anyone else. But then something happened -- there was a fire, and I had a shock. I'm sorry."

"Oh! You didn't have to do that, I was a stranger. The doctors and nurses looked after me alright. I told them my husband was on a ship in the Atlantic." Viv remembered it as vividly as she'd remembered being in the ambulance when she saw Kay again. "They were too busy to ask me much anyway, because of the air raid. It was funny -- usually I can't stand hospitals, but when I woke up I lay there listening to them, calling me Mrs Harrison and talking about transfusions and, I don't know, fluids, and I thought, at least right now I know just what I'm doing. I'd been terrified about what to do for so long, it was like coming out of prison. Then I started worrying that they'd find my papers inside my coat, but they didn't."

Viv wasn't sure why she'd blurted all that out to a virtual stranger, except that she'd known Kay would understand. She'd liked the way Kay said sorry, as though that one word was all that needed to be said. Reggie had kept on explaining himself, cursing every bit of bad luck, and saying "You will forgive me, Viv? I couldn't bear it if you didn't." She'd said she did, of course, and when she'd said they should both forget it ever happened his face had lit up with relief.

"What a bloody awful night," said Kay.

"It really was." Viv laughed suddenly at just how terrible it had been, at the way that something like that could happen and afterwards she could be standing on a busy street next to a poster of Joan Crawford, with a young man who knew nothing about it waiting for her to return. "Bloody awful!" she said, so loudly that passers-by looked round at her disapprovingly. "Bloody, bloody awful."

Kay smiled at her for the first time, a tired smile but one which filled her face with warmth.

"Thank God we got you there in time. That's one good thing which came out of it." She'd put the ring into her pocket, but she took it out and turned it over in her hand, then put it away again. "Thanks for taking care of my ring. I thought I'd never see it again."

She vanished into the cinema. Viv looked after her for a moment, still taking in the fact that she'd really done it. Then she turned and saw Fraser, still in the window of the cafe. Having somewhere to go, and someone to see her elation, made everything seem perfect. She ran back across the road towards him.


End file.
